In order to grow as a person you should be learning more about yourself everyday.

You have to know your strengths so that you know where to invest your time, energy, and resources, and you have to know your weaknesses so that you know where you are vulnerable.

I’ve experienced enough over my lifetime to know that I’m an unequivocal hopeless romantic with a penchant for well-intentioned gestures that often come across as “over the top” in romance. I’ve also come to learn that I’m liable to fall for someone abruptly, and with relative ease.

It may not be love (it almost certainly never is), but it’s something.

It’s that feeling of elation that consumes your body when you’re with them; it’s that almost uncontrollable smile that comes across your face when you think of them; it’s something that gives you hope for a brighter future.

Unlike most men, it can take just one date for me to know that I want to be with someone exclusively. One date — that’s it. There have been a number of times when I’ve called my best friend while driving home from a first date and said, “She’s it. I don’t want to see anyone else.”

It can happen that quickly, and I’m sure that might be the case for many of the hopeless romantics out there who refuse to lose hope in love or even people, for that matter.

But it doesn’t happen that often, which is arguably the biggest misconception when it comes to how hopeless romantics operate.

It’s one thing to be someone who knows what they want, acknowledges it when they see it, and isn’t afraid to go after it. It is something else entirely to be someone who tries to shoehorn in a relationship that clearly isn’t there with every single person they go on a date with.

I can fall easily, but I don’t fall often.

When someone is trusted with my heart, they have all of me.

My belief is that when you find the right person, they will protect your heart as if it were their own. My belief is that however battered and bruised your heart may be, it will be healed to full strength when in the hands of the proper caretaker.

When I’ve fallen for someone, there is no shortage of romantic ideas racing through my head with them in mind. As one friend put it: “If feelings are reciprocated, there is no gesture too grand.”

When I’ve fallen for someone, they are the only person on my mind. That doesn’t mean I’m planning weddings or picking out baby names, but it does mean that out of all of the beautiful women that may be walking around, she is the only one who has my eye.

It can happen with relative ease, but it doesn’t happen often, and I think it’s vitally important for her and myself to always remain cognizant of that.